"So, today, while, thankfully, he was no longer alive, having drowned himself many years ago in his own bathtub, as his wife had washed the dishes, even though the pieces of Sweet Sue were bone cold to the touch, Darlene could hardly wait to feel Milton's heart beating hot and wet between her two hands as she squeezed out of him the sorry tears of his all too easily won love for her."
by Susannah Breslin

You never truly knew what you were getting into on the day that you were born, now did you?, she thought to herself. For here she was today, her hands shaped in two cups, as the girl's insides tumbled into her palms. Surely, he had meant well with this gift for her of the anatomical doll who had arrived in a box marked SWEET SUE. But, when she had removed the female figurine's breastplate all its insides had come falling out, and then, Oh, oh!, Milton had cried, grappling into the empty air with his fat, white, and pasty hands. It was too late. By the time Sweet Sue's small lungs had toppled, and her dark slab of kidney had fallen, and her plastic heart sat woodenly up on top of it all, Darlene, for all intents and purposes, had already left the scene of the crime. Inside her mind, it was as if reality was only a chalk outline drawn around a blood-soaked body that had been gurneyed away to the morgue. She had gone back in her head to that moment in time at which she had stood across from the young boy down by the lake near her childhood home, envisioning gutting him like a fish out of water, as he had systematically eviscerated her with his small, pink, and narrow tongue. So, today, while, thankfully, he was no longer alive, having drowned himself many years ago in his own bathtub, as his wife had washed the dishes, even though the pieces of Sweet Sue were bone cold to the touch, Darlene could hardly wait to feel Milton's heart beating hot and wet between her two hands as she squeezed out of him the sorry tears of his all too easily won love for her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susannah Breslin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. Her articles have appeared in Salon.com, Harper's Bazaar, Details and the LA Weekly among others, and her visage has appeared on programs ranging from Politically Incorrect to CNN. Currently, she is writing a novel, Reverse Cowgirl, which is "a surrealized account of her many journalistic adventures through Porn Valley, USA". Read Susannah's The Reverse Cowgirl's Blog.